She is not your bride.
Beware what you think is yours.
Beware the thing you covet
For it is mean and vicious:
The whirlwind that you'll reap
When the wind you sow
With fearful eyes.
Turn your face instead 
Downward to the dust.
Lick it up.
And remember 
From whence you came.
You are not more than truth
And it does not 
Court your fancies 
Nor pander to your lies.

All of nature sprang
From that one frightful, impulsive,
Ever expectant spark of joy.
And ever since, it has been 
Doing what it pleased,
Delighting itself 
In that which suited it.
The owl hoo hooing
And the squirrels running too and fro
And the pigs sunning themselves in the mud.
Ever joyfully choosing their lot.
Only man
Does a thing out of duty.
Only man expects of himself
A thing that is more than his nature.
Only man deludes himself
Into believing that he is pleased 
With his captivity.
What are you, oh man
But a lesser thing than nature?
You serve a phantom,
And it has you springing up
At every corner 
And putting on your faces
And pretending as the day is long
And whoring through the night
Till dragging, scraping, dribbling down,
You drop into your grave.
But after death, perhaps there's hope,
Hope that you will rise
As noble as the rodents
Who at least have sense enough
To do a thing
Not for that which they will gain
But for the simple joy 
Of doing it.

I ride upon your current
Where?  I do not know.
But I drift along
With sky above
And you beneath
And without a thought, Old River,
You carry me away.
Deep into the valley,
Out into the sea.
You drown me in the tide
Of the thing I'm meant to be.
You are wiser than the mountains, Old River
And taller than the trees,
For it's you that keeps on moving
Ever changeless in your changes.
And always being, shaping, giving life
To everything you see.
Give me life Old River.
Give me peace
Peace in knowing
That you know
Where we are going.
Peace in knowing
That I, though but a speck
Upon your current,
Am ever more becoming
Ever changing in your changes
Ever more a tumbling current
Ever endlessly with Thee.

I saw a man
With more than he could handle.
And the handle broke
Before he could manage it.
And here we are,
He and I,
Finally free 
From the thing 
We hoped to be.
Give it time
And we'll all settle 
Down to the bottom.
And then raise us up
Up to that which we were
Before we believed 
​That we were enough.

Goodbye.
I thought that perhaps
I could find a place here.
But we are not 
Of the same race.
We are not 
Of the same planet,
You and I.
Perhaps another day
On another world
In another sphere of existence.
I don't know if even then.
I was sad, you know.
I thought again
That I might be the thing you wanted.
But I am afraid 
That I am not.
Do you ever wonder
What it is you're missing 
There behind the glass.
Don't you ever long
For the thing 
That you might be 
If you believed
In something more
Than the tinsel.
It's cheap you know,
Dollar store rubbish.
New today,
Trash tomorrow.
But oh how it glitters,
Promising freedom
That never comes.
I'm afraid 
That the world you love
Will have to stop turning
Before you'll consider.
And it will.
Give it time.
And then perhaps.
Then perhaps.

Here I am.
I call to you 
From the other side 
Of nowhere
But you busy yourself
With something or other, 
Lost in the thing
That draws you onward,
The carrot, held out,
Ever promising
Ever disappointing,
Leaving you breathless, 
Forsaken by that which
You think you see
Beyond the mist.
But you are looking 
In the wrong direction.
You will not find me there.
All the same,
I do what I can
And you are not wholly alone,
For I sneak in
Between your fits of "inspiration"
And it is I 
That wraps you up 
In the warmth of summer days
And pillows you 
In the leaves that fall 
From my branches.
It is my perfume 
That scents your memories
And it is me
That you recall
When the mountain breezes 
Waft across your desk
And loose you
In the reveries
Of hapless, childlike days,
Before you knew desire.
I miss you,
More than you know.
And I know that you believe
You are forsaken,
But you are not.
For here I am,
Gazing upon you,
Loving you
Trusting you 
To all your busy causes.
And when 
You have worn yourself out
In seeking,
I will be here
To welcome you you home
To all you were 
And will be
Before you thought to improve
​Upon my creation.

Can you be content
With what you are?
Me neither.
But we sin
In our displeasure.
And it's a shame really,
For the coarsest of us  
Is so wonderfully fashioned,
Made for a purpose,
Not our purpose
But His.  
And to spite
Our ungrateful hearts,
There are times 
When grace meets us
Where we are.
Blessed days 
Of reckless abandon,
As if what we were 
Were what we should be,
Days of rest
Amidst the tumult
Of ambition.
And the sun shines down
Upon us there
In the empty spaces
That lie between 
The disappointments of the past
And the dreams 
Of what we'll one day be.
It's there we meet
The truth
Of God's creation.
It's there we worship
The creator 
And not the image
Of what we can create.
And it warms us 
With the knowledge
That we are
The thing that's needed
Just here,
Just now.
​Isn't that enough.